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Thursday, May 24, 2007

My Personal Truth

Cutting foods from my diet hasn’t been easy, but it’s anecessity. Since starting phase two of the Best Life Diet my total calorieintake is 1600 a day. Surprisingly, I’m not suffering too badly. I used phaseone to sort through most of my crap about weight and it wasn’t easy.

Growing up I didn’t worry about my weight. I was confidentand athletic. All that changed after the birth of my first child. I gained toomuch weight during the pregnancy, lost most of it with in a year of givingbirth, but then received the kick in the teeth when my mother said if I didn’tlose another 20 or 30 pounds my husband wouldn’t want me anymore. I was alreadyfeeling unsteady as a new mother and that was the last thing I needed to hear. Iwasn’t ready at 23 to be a mom but it was too late because my beautifuldaughter was already with me. On top of not feeling ready I despised where Ilived. I lived in the Mojave Desert of California. My first time seeing it Idescribed it as a giant kitty litter box. The weight gain didn’t start then, Iactually lost more weight, had a miscarriage, gave birth to another daughter,lost that weight and then some after the death of my mother who always told meI was fat even when I wasn’t. All of that happened between the years of 1993and 1997.

My weight gain started after my mother’s death. I felt a tonof guilt at the relief I felt that I wouldn’t have to hear her day after daysay something about my weight or the weight of my oldest daughter. While myweight wasn’t an issue during the time before my mother’s death myself-confidence was. Each day from the day I found out I was pregnant with myfirst child I felt like a piece of me died each day. I bought into the fairytale that life was supposed to be all sugar and spice and that my life would befull of happiness because I was a wife and mother. Quite the opposite was trueand the more we as women start to talk out loud the more we realize that morethan just a few of us feel this way. I hit a false bottom the day my fatherdied almost five years after my mother died. I say false because I did start tomake changes in my life it was also when I started gaining weight.

While I was finding my personal voice and creativeexpression again I started to feel the guilt of feeling free of the burden ofdealing with an ailing parent. I started to eat. I also started dealing withthe issues I had with my mother and why she dwelled on my weight and theimportance of me being thin and pretty and the weight piled on. I look back atphotos now and realize I was never fat and it wasn’t my problem it was mymother’s flaw and whether she knew it or not she was projecting her shortcomings onto me. While I went out of my way not to repeat my mother’s mistakeswith my girls I let her voice creep into my sub conscious and cause me to doubtmyself.

Today I am able to push her words aside and replace the ‘you’regetting fat and ugly’ with “Hey, look you lost a pound this week. You’regetting thinner and you’ve always been beautiful.”

Dig deep and tell the truth about why you over eat. Here’smine I over eat because I get bored and I over eat when I think about the pastand what I heard from my mother. I also over eat because being a wife andmother isn’t a complete and fulfilling life for me. Life is better now becauseI am willing to admit that I need more than my husband and kids. I need mywriting, photography, dogs and friends. I am not happy with a life that iscentered on only my children and husband. This is my truth, what's yours?

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Copyright 2005 to Present Year Linda S. Dupie owns all creative works contained with in this blog Dreams to Reality using any portion without written consent is a violation of the creators copyright. For information click on Copyright Laws